I’ve learned a lot from my time as a server:
Your value as a human is actually determined by how much you sell…or how much you mess up. You are expected to know pretty much everything about the establishment you work at. Eat, sleep, breathe – dining. And, there are way too many flavors of mojitos.
Recommended for you
Restaurants have a way of consuming your whole life. Even when you don't have to work, you're probably there eating or bothering your coworkers because that's just a thing you do. Your roommates and non-work friends are convinced that you have effectively fallen off the face of the planet and been sucked into the food-service hole.
When you become a server, you transform from the ambitious, happy-go-lucky, high-achiever into the soulless body that blindly brings people the food and drink that they ask for. You’ve become uninspired and jaded and the demands of people are often too much for just one person to handle.
So we work days and nights and we make our $2 an hour and hope that people decide that our work is worth paying us so that we’re not stuck getting a blank check every other week.
Nothing (and I mean nothing) could prepare you for how absolutely absurd people are.
We survive, but are by no means thriving; and even though we love our jobs (or tolerate them depending on other influencing factors), we still question why we come to work and try so hard just to make people happy.
1. Your income is always uncertain.
No matter what you do, you never know how much you're going home with at the end of your shift.
2. The famous: “Hi how are you?” “I’ll have a water with lemon and no ice please”.
Really? I made an effort to make conversation and all you see is vending machine with legs…
3. You can’t be in multiple places at the same time.
You can try all you want, but it’s really difficult to try to take care of everything that you need to do when it gets busy.
4. People come to restaurants because they want to be SERVED.
...and often take it personally when you have to do other parts of your job instead of be there for their every need and desire.
5. People have a tendency to forget that you can’t do everything.
You don’t prepare the food, you don’t make the drinks, you have no control over the pace at which they get everything if it hasn’t already been made yet. And a lot of times, the people who make your food and drinks don’t have much control over it either.
6. Sometimes customers even think that you’re superhuman.
They ask you for something and look at you like an idiot when you leave to go get it for them. It’s like they expected it to appear right before their eyes just because they asked for it.
7. You are expected to have all the answers.
Not just about the menu or the establishment, but when your customers have a problem, it falls on you, which is not always feasible when you have other work-related responsibilities. People expect you to be able to problem-solve your way out of anything because you’re the server.
8. Sometimes, people think that you’re actually a wheelbarrow.
They start piling plates on top of each other in your hands and expect that you’re not going to drop them. OR when you bring them things and don’t have everything they act like you’re stupid and forgot stuff, when the reality is…we have two hands just like them.
9. Time is money.
The more time you spend doing anything but tending to the needs of your table (even if they NEED you to leave them alone), the less money you’ll make. People like to be paid attention to, so really people are tipping you based on how much time you make them think they’re worth.
Too much time = you’re a creep
Not enough time = you’re lazy
10. That feeling you get when you get a great tip.
11. As compared to the feeling you get when people don’t tip you at all.
12. If you’re not organized, you’re screwed.
It’s easy to get behind or start making mistakes when you don’t have everything in order.
13. Having a good relationship with the cooks is CRITICAL
They are in charge of what you bring to your table. They are also the people that you spend most of your “downtime” with because a lot of your shift will happen in the kitchen. On top of that, they make food. What more reason do you need?
14. Your customers ask you when you’re going to get a “real job”
Well, this really pays my bills. So for now, this is it.
15. Your customers make assumptions about your intelligence because of your job
I often find myself explaining to people that I am, in fact, a relatively smart person even though I’m just a server. Your customers think it’s okay to say pretty much anything to you and you’ll take it because they are the sole determinant of how much money you make.
16. “What are you doing when you get off tonight…..”
Shifts leave you in one of two moods. You either A) want to go home and do absolutely nothing or B) ready to party. One can never predict which it’ll be.
17. There’s no ‘i’ in “team”
We’re not a traditional team or anything, but we work together like one. You get each other because you have the same experiences and you spend a lot of time together anyways.
18. You’ve lost most hope in humanity
Are you not cynical enough? As a server, you’ve seen every single kind of person in your store, so you’ve unintentionally started psychoanalyzing everyone based on their behavior in restaurants. Work at a restaurant and watch as your innocent perspective of the human race disintegrates right in front of your face…
19. Non-slip shoes are a myth.
We trick ourselves into thinking that if we buy shoes that are meant for restaurant environments that we won’t slip. What a joke….
20. You may get stuck working as a server for longer than you initially intended….
I don’t know what it is, but it’s really hard to just stop serving once you’ve started.
21. Your schedule is anything but predictable
"What time do you get off work tonight?”
….the world may never know
22. Verbal tips are not real tips
Thanks for your phone number…can I exchange this for a monetary tip???
“Great service” means nothing if it doesn’t equal 20%.
23. Hard work is often unnoticed
No matter what you do, you could still be doing more. Just accept it now, because this is the real world.
24. Humor with your tables is often hit or miss…
I once told a table that they couldn’t get a to go box because it was “against the rules,” and they just accepted it as truth instead of laughing at the absurdity of my comment.
25. Respect goes a long way
With your coworkers, with your boss, with your customers, with yourself.
The bottom line: no matter what, you must never forget that you are not a real human being. Your tables sure as hell won’t.
